Last week I saw a church sign that was so good it convinced me to visit their Sunday morning service. That has NEVER happened to me before.
Church signs never interest me. I’ve never seen a joke on a church sign and thought “I GOTTA BE A PART OF THAT!” I’m sure it could happen as long as the joke was incredible. Like, it would have to be the greatest joke I’ve ever seen in my life. One of those “crash your car because you’re laughing so hard” good.
This sign didn’t have joke.
“TALKING MENTAL HEALTH” is what caught my eye. Yes. Yes. Yes. How awesome is that? I even pulled into the church parking lot so I could take a picture and post it on social media with the caption “more churches need to do this!”
The service the next day was really good too. Pastor Bobby Contreras was super open and honest and had a lot of great things to say.
“If we don’t have this conversation in church, where we to have it.”
Yes and amen.
It’s like when parents are nervous having the sex talk with their kids but they convince themselves it’s the right thing to do because who knows what those little perverts at school are telling them. If they don’t get to have that conversation with you, they’ll look for someone else to have it with. And those other people could be spreading toxic garbage.
The church needs to address the uncomfortable topics EVEN IF NO ONE IN THE CHURCH IS CURRENTLY DEALING WITH IT.
1. (ONE) They might not be dealing with it now but who knows what tomorrow will hold.
2. (TWO) Someone could be dealing with mental health issues without realizing that’s what it is. It might take someone else talking about it for them to realize “oh shoot that sounds like what I’ve been going through.”
3. (THREE) Everyone who isn’t struggling with their mental health is still going out into the world and interacting with people who are. They can learn from the church how to talk about the issue and how to love someone going through it.